Here’s a video that’s part of the Beginning Mobile Game Development course — it helps explain the difference between setReferencePoint(), which should no longer be used, and the anchorX and anchorY properties of an object.

The biggest advantage of anchor points over the old way is that with setReferencePoint() you could specify just nine points on an object to be the reference point (or anchor) — now you can specify any point of the object. (Although to be honest, you’ll probably only ever use 2 or 3 different anchor points in everything you do.)

Using anchorX/Y, not setReferencePoint() (6:29)

This video shows how to use anchorX and anchorY in the sample code instead of setReferencePoint(). This is a must view.

While I did highlight CenterLeft while talking, what I’m saying at that point is that if you’re going to set it to TopLeft you’d use anchorX=0 and anchorY=0, which is correct. Not sure why I was highlighting CenterLeft while talking about TopLeft! 🙂